Chapter 1

Take it from an expert.

Stay out of the woods.

I’m a wildlife biologist, and for the last several years I’ve been posted to a conservation outpost deep in the Rocky Mountains.

My coworkers and I are overseeing the reintroduction of timber wolves in this region. Most of my work involves tracking the wolves. We monitor their populations and study their movements using tracking collars we've placed on several members of the pack.

For months, everything was going better than anticipated, but about two weeks ago we noticed something strange. According to our trackers, the pack had started avoiding one particular valley.

It started slowly; we noticed the pack spending less and less time in a pristine valley. Up until this point, the wolves had been roaming the valley quite regularly, but we just figured they were settling into a different part of the region. Soon we realized that wasn’t at all the case; the pack was still in the area. They just avoided the valley. The trackers painted a clear picture: the wolves were going everywhere, but not the valley.

We had a staff meeting to discuss what could be causing this.

The ten of us shuffled into the small, rarely used conference room.

Mike, our lead researcher, stood up and passed around some diagrams. Making his way to the front, he said

“Take a look at the printout.” He paused for a moment as the room filled with the sound of rustling paper

“We've mapped every collar ping we've received over the last two weeks. As you can see, the pack is still moving throughout the region.”

He pointed toward the map.

“But they aren't entering the valley.”

He paused.

“Not once in the last two weeks.”

“The boundary is almost perfect. They approach it, turn around, and go somewhere else. So, what are we looking at?”

The room fell silent for a moment as eyes stared thoughtfully into the distance or blankly at the handout.

“Maybe another predator has settled in the valley,” Frank spoke up

A mocking laugh rose from the other side of the room

“Like what?” Amanda said

“Bigfoot? Come on, Frank, you should know better; even a mountain lion wouldn’t be enough to scare an entire pack from its territory.”

“Well, what’s your bright idea?” Frank sarcastically said

Amanda shrugged

“Probably bad water.”

At that, the room erupted with both critique and defense of Amanda’s explanation. The argument lasted a few minutes before Mike spoke up

“Alright, that’s enough!” he loudly commanded

“Does anyone here have an explanation that has evidence?”

The room was silent.

“I didn’t think so.”

Mike looked down at the map again.

“Whatever is happening, we're not going to figure it out sitting in this room. We need someone on the ground. So I’m asking for two volunteers to go into the valley and find some evidence.”

I don’t know why, but I raised my hand

“Great, thank you, Chris. Who else?” Mike said

“I’ll go,” Will said from across the room.

“Great, get your packs ready. Tomorrow morning I’ll drive you two to the trailhead.”

The sun was barely up, but Will and I had already been bouncing around in the back of Mike’s Jeep for over an hour. A ten-mile, all-wheel-drive-only road separated the research facility from the only trail into the research region. It was slow going; the road was barely that, and more like a rocky, dry riverbed winding its way through the wilderness.

As we neared the trailhead, Mike shouted back to us

“It’s going to be just you two for a while; I’ll be back in three days to pick you up, sound good?”

Will and I nodded, and I glanced in Will’s direction; his face showed a strange mix of excitement and fear. He was the youngest member of the team, fresh out of college and barely 23.

“Hey,” I shouted to get his attention.

His blue eyes turned towards me.

“Don’t worry about this; just think of it as a camping trip.”

He nodded and forced a grin.

“Yeah, it’ll be fun.”

“Keep the radio on.” Mike interrupted

“If you get into trouble, call me.”

“Got it.” I gave him a big thumbs up.

“And don't get separated.”

“We won't.”

The Jeep came to a stop in a tiny clearing; a narrow trail disappeared into the pines. I reached for my pack and jumped to the dirt; Will followed me. Mike called to us as we moved towards the trail

“Stay safe, keep the radio on!” With that, he backed up and headed back down the road. The noise of the jeep resounded in the forest for a while, but soon all was quiet. Almost too quiet: no birds, no wind moving through the trees, just silence.

I turned towards the trail, and then towards Will. With a hand, he beckoned me to go ahead.

“After you.” He said.

According to our maps, the valley was roughly 5 miles from the trailhead. The going was slow; the trail was rugged and steep in places. But what slowed us down the most was the research we were gathering.

Every mile, we stopped and examined the area for signs of wolves. In the first three miles, we found very little evidence of wolves, but in miles four and five, we found quite a lot of tracks and scat. This confirmed what the trackers had shown; the wolves were still in the area of the valley.

At the top of a small ridge, we stopped. Below was the valley. It was roughly 6 miles in length and 2 miles in width. Various groves of aspen trees dotted its open prairie, as well as the occasional pine tree. A healthy creek flowed from one end to the other; a beaver dam formed a small pond near the center of the valley.

“Well, there it is.” I declared

Will nodded

“Sure looks different than that map we’ve been staring at for weeks.”

“Sure does,” I said as I pulled out the map with the tracker data points.

“Looks like the boundary Mike was talking about is about 100 feet ahead.”

“Let’s check for signs there,” Will replied

We made our way to the perimeter of the valley; there we found a high volume of wolf tracks. The tracks formed a path along the border of the valley. It was strange to look at; it was like the tracks simply refused to go any further into the valley. On the valley side, the land didn’t bear a single track.

The two of us marveled at this unusual behavior. I turned to Will and said

“Let’s follow the tracks for a bit; you go to the left, and I’ll go right, meet back here at the trail in an hour.”

With a nod, he replied

“Sounds good.”

I followed the tracks to the right for about a mile and a half, but could see that they continued much further; the tracks curved around the perimeter of the valley, without one wayward pawprint crossing into the valley. I also began to notice marks on the trees along the perimeter. They were everywhere. Not on every tree, but close enough that I could almost follow them from one to the next. And every one of them was on the side of the tree facing the valley.

Making marks on trees is not an uncommon practice in the natural world. Bears do it; deer and elk do it. But these were different; I’ve never seen marks like this. The bark had been ripped away in long, uneven strips. Some of the gouges were more than an inch deep, exposing pale wood underneath. I couldn't think of a single animal in the area capable of doing that.

When I got back to the trail, Will was already there. His eyes were wide with concern, but he gave a smile as he saw me.

“Did the tracks go around the valley?” I asked

“Yeah.”

“Did you see marks on the trees?”

He swallowed and nodded

“Yeah.”

I tried to play it off

“Not a big deal; a lot of animals do that. Could just be one marking its territory; maybe Frank was right, and there’s a new predator in the area.”

He thought about it before replying

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

He stared down at the valley

“Now what?” he asked

I pointed toward a grove of aspens near the pond. The ground there looked flat, and we'd have easy access to water.

“Let’s set up camp near those trees, and then we’ll record these findings.”

It was mid-afternoon by the time we had finished setting up camp. I lazily rested in the hammock I had packed, while Will tried some fishing in the pond. The valley was quiet and peaceful. And the combination of exhaustion from the hike and the soothing rocking of the hammock sent me into a deep sleep.

When I woke, Will was tending a fire and setting up the small camp stove we had brought. I stepped out of the hammock and walked over to the fireside.

“Hey,” Will said with a smile

“Hey,” I yawned. “What time is it?”

“A little after six. Are you hungry? I was going to get dinner going.”

I nodded

“Yeah, I could eat.”

Moments later, we enjoyed rehydrated beef stroganoff around a warm fire. The setting was beautiful; in that moment, I was glad I had volunteered for this outing.

“Did you catch anything?” I asked Will

He shook his head

“Nah, I gave up pretty quick.”

He stared off into the valley

“You good?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to continue

“It’s just that, I’ve looked around while you were asleep, and I can’t find evidence of any animals living here.”

He took a drink from his water bottle

“I haven’t seen any tracks of any kind; I haven’t heard any birds since we’ve been in the valley; even the beaver dam is abandoned. Haven’t seen any fish in the pond either.”

I shrugged and replied

“Could just be the ecosystem adjusting to the reintroduction of a predator into the food chain.”

He smirked

“Come on, man, you know it’s never this drastic; there’s something else happening here.”

I looked at him; his eyes told me he was serious. I nodded in agreement

“Ok, you’re right. This is unusual, but we need more evidence before including this in our report.”

His jaw clenched

“Morning. Our priority will be trying to find evidence of any animal; if we can’t, we’ll add that to our findings, then our focus will shift to finding a cause for this.”

“Sounds good.” Is all he said.

An hour or so later, we both prepared to go to bed; dousing the fire, we entered our individual tents. Several hours later, I was awakened by loud howling and yipping. Peeking my head out of the tent, I saw that Will was already up, so, slipping on my boots, I quietly made my way to him. He held our night vision camera in his hand.

“What is it?” I whispered

“It’s the wolves,” he whispered back

“They’re at the edge of the valley.”

He handed me the camera, and I pointed it to the perimeter. There were so many wolves about fifty; they stood there on the edge of the valley; some ran up and down their path of tracks, others stood still, looking into the valley, howling and barking loudly. It was like they were behind glass.

We watched for a while, and at some point a fight broke out within the pack; several larger wolves surrounded a smaller one who tried to defend itself as best as it could, but the bigger wolves began to push it towards the perimeter of the valley, the night air filled with the sounds of angry dogs and the whimpering of their target. Eventually, the weaker animal lost as the attackers pushed it into the valley. The pack went silent, and only the whimpering of the frightened animal was heard. The Wolf looked wildly around and then, in a panic, it ran down into the valley; it passed our camp running deeper into the valley, whining all the way, and vanished into the darkness of the night.

The pack on the outside of the valley stood and quietly watched; then the alpha turned and walked away the others followed.

“What the hell?” I muttered

Will and I stared in the direction the wolf had run; it was further north. We hadn’t been in that part of the valley yet. As we looked in that direction in the distance, we heard a scared yip of a wolf, then the rest of the night was quiet.

We made a small fire and sat around it. Will finally spoke

“What was that?”

I stared into the fire

“I’m not sure,” I replied

The fire grew cold, and we finally returned to our tents.

Morning came, and Will and I silently prepared for the day. It wasn’t till after breakfast that we spoke to each other.

“I think we should try to find where that wolf went.” I broke the silence

Will stared at the pond and tried to skip a stone across the water

“Okay,” he slowly nodded

We gathered our gear, located the wolf’s tracks, and followed them. The tracks continued across the valley’s open prairie, making their way to the thick clusters of pines on the opposite end. The tracks disappeared behind a large clump of bushes. Behind them, we found the wolf, or what was left of it. Lying in the dirt was the body of the wolf. Its skin had been carefully removed and was missing. Its exposed muscles, bones, and sinew were wet with blood. It smelled awful, but not a single fly or maggot could be seen. All four of its paws had been cleanly cut off just about the ankle joint.

I looked to Will; his face was as white as I’m sure mine was.

“Get back to camp,” I muttered

Will didn’t need to be told twice. The body of the wolf was about two miles from our camp, and we ran the whole way. We were nearly back to camp when I stepped in a gopher hole. I heard my ankle pop, and I fell to the ground.

“Damn it,” I muttered in pain. Will pulled me to my feet and helped me hobble back to the camp. I twisted my ankle, and it was very swollen. I winced as I removed the boot; it was painful to move.

Will was near panic

“We need to get out of here.” He declared

“I know, but I can’t with my ankle like this.”

I winced in pain

“Call Mike on the radio”

He handed it to me. I turned it on

“Mike, do you read? We need help; I’ve injured my leg.”

Only static replied

“Mike, are you there?”

Again, only static.

“The mountains must be blocking the signal,” I said to Will

“We’re going to have to wait till the swelling goes down.”

He clenched his jaw but finally agreed. For the rest of the day, we remained in camp. Will rarely looked away from the direction we found the wolf. Every thirty minutes he tried the radio; no one ever responded. At sunset, we heard a scream from where we found the wolf. It sounded like a woman screaming for her life. Will looked at me

“It’s a mountain lion. That’s what’s been causing this.”

I nodded; the roar of a Mountain lion sounds like a woman screaming.

“I agree, but it’s unlike a mountain lion to do something like that to a wolf.”

He shrugged

“Doesn’t matter if we can find a track or scat; that’s enough proof, and we can be done with this.”

“Ok, tomorrow let’s find the proof, then get back to the trailhead.”

“What about your leg?” Will asked

“Don’t worry about it; it’ll be better tomorrow.”

That satisfied him, and he headed to his tent. I went to mine shortly after.

The next morning I found a note on my tent; it said

“You rest, I’ll find the cat. Will”

“Damn it, Will,” I muttered as I looked around the area.

He was gone, probably had been for a while. My foot was still swollen, but not nearly as painful as last night. I hobbled my way over to the camp stove and prepared some breakfast. Deciding that if he wasn’t back in an hour, I’d go after him.

An hour came and went, and there was no sign of Will. Rising to my feet, I called out to him

“Will!” his name echoed across the valley with no reply

“Will, where are you?” I cried again; still nothing.

Choosing a stick for support, I slowly made my way down the valley. It was afternoon by the time I reached the wooded section of the valley. I passed by the skinned wolf; it didn’t seem to be decaying in any way. I stopped and called for Will

“Will! It’s Chris, are you ok?”

The quiet forest gave no response; it was there that I saw Will’s footsteps going deeper in. I followed them as best as I could. The footsteps went around a large boulder. I’ll never forget what I saw there. The limp, skinned body of Will lay in a blood-soaked clearing. It looked like his skin had been perfectly peeled from his form. His feet and ankles were gone. His blue eyes had been pulled from his head and placed gently on a flat rock.

I could feel vomit rising in my throat. I turned away; the sight and smell were too much for me. My eyes flooded with tears. I wanted to leave, but the nearby snap of a twig froze me in place. Another twig snapped, followed by loud rustling in the bushes. It was close, no further than fifty yards. The rustling and snapping twigs moved with purpose, then stopped. All was quiet for a moment, then a dry, haunting voice echoed off the trees.

“Will! It’s Chris. Are you ok?”

It was my voice, a poor, inhuman mimic of my voice; it lacked all cadence and emotion.

“Will, where are you?”

It copied me again, then the rustling continued. Adrenaline filled my veins, and I moved as fast as my foot would allow. I didn’t stop to pack my tent or grab my pack. The sun was setting as I returned to the trail. As I left the valley, the voice spoke again from behind me. Only this time it wasn’t my voice; it was Will’s

“Chris, are you ok?”

“Chris, where are you going?”

In the dark, I stumbled my way along the trail. There was no moon that night, and I didn’t have a light with me. But I kept going. I couldn’t stop; every time I did, I heard strange noises behind me in the distance. It sounded like bone grinding on bone. It was a little before sunrise when I stumbled off the trail into the small clearing where Mike had left us. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long to hear the distant rumble of Mike’s jeep moving up the mountain. Relief flooded me when the vehicle came into view. A smiling Mike excited the jeep

“Good to see you, Chris,” he explained, but looking around, a frown filled his face

“Where’s Will?”

“Will’s gone,” was all I could say

“What?”

“He’s gone.” Tears began to form in my eyes

But a noise came from the trail, loud footsteps then Will came into view.

“Sorry,” this Will said with a grin. “Had to take a piss; fell a bit behind.”

He looked at me

“Hey Chris, you left your pack back there.” he headed my pack to me

“Didn’t want you to forget it,” he said, and a sly smirk stretched across his face.

I stared in disbelief and fear

“Great,” Mike said. “Let’s get you boys out of here.”

I turned to him, wide-eyed

“Why didn’t you answer the radio?” I whispered

A puzzled look crossed his face

“What do you mean? Will was in contact with me the whole time.”

“Yeah,” the thing acting as Will spoke up

“Don’t you remember Chris? You asked me to deal with the radio,” it said with a wide smile

I stared at the ground in confusion

“Sounds like you could use some rest, Chris,” Mike said

“Hop in; we’ll debrief back at the station.”

Absentmindedly, I climbed into the back of the jeep. ‘Will’ followed. In the back of the jeep, we sat opposite each other. I stared at it, and it stared back; a wide, lazy smile never left the face of my dead friend. Dull yellowish-green eyes sat behind his skin. With each bump in the road, the stolen skin grew loose on a face it didn’t belong to. At one point, the skin surrounding the left eye socket was knocked loose, and gravity pulled it down the cheek, revealing blackened bones and decaying muscle that hid beneath. The thing calmly used one finger to pull the skin back up and stick it in place. All while smiling and staring at me.

The moment we arrived at the station, I hopped out of the jeep and hurried to my living quarters. I’m still there as I write this; I don’t know what to do. The thing is at my door; I see its shadow under the door and hear its heavy breathing. I’m writing this because I doubt anyone here would believe me, and at the moment I’m not sure any of us are leaving alive. Please listen to my warning; there are things out there that we were never meant to find.

Stay out of the woods.

You never know what will follow you home.